


The Lark and the Linden Tree

by Sovin



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Magic, Canon Era, Gen, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sovin/pseuds/Sovin
Summary: Cosette knows as soon as she wakes that something is wrong, and finds her mother missing. In a world shaped by tales, she sets out to restore her small, beloved family to the way it out to be, stumbling into friendship, hardship, and the breaking of curses.





	The Lark and the Linden Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [temperamental_mistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temperamental_mistress/gifts).



> Dear temperamental_mistress, while all your prompts were great, I admittedly looked at the last one and went “challenge accepted,” so I hope you enjoy a canon era fairy tale AU wherein Cosette makes friends and loves her family quite a bit, and, in the nature of narrative, you can be certain that everything resolves when the motives are right. I didn’t quite hit every item on your list, but I tried my best to include what I could! Happy holidays to you and yours!
> 
> The standard disclaimer applies, as always.
> 
> Be aware that there are references to canonical abuse, neglect, and trauma, but nothing is graphic or heavily detailed. The timeline is perhaps a little bit fudged to suit the narrative, but I’ve sought to be as true as I can under the circumstances of an AU.
> 
> I will definitely include a link to where you can come chat with me when reveals are up!

There is a certain function of the habituated mind, to realize all at once and suddenly that something is gravely out of place with only the smallest of cues.

Cosette wakes, drowsy and warm, and something strikes her as odd.

She sits up and frowns thoughtfully: the color of her curtains has changed. Her wardrobe is the same, the floor still cool in the early morning, but her hairbrush is plainer than it was.

In a world of magic and strange tales, Cosette has a growing suspicion of what may have happened. Quietly, she opens her wardrobe, skims her fingers across the fabric.

Some of the dresses she recognizes, and those she doesn’t are still to her taste, but there is certainly a difference: one of the gowns is a delicate white, vertically striped with rows of delicate, spring colored flowers, a fabric that, in a slightly different configuration, should sit in Cosette’s mother’s wardrobe.

She suppresses a shiver and, with the watchful patience that never quite left her, decides to confirm her suspicions.

It is easy enough to slip any strangeness past Toussaint, who clicks her tongue sympathetically when Cosette demurs she’s slept poorly to avoid any conversational stumbles. Easy enough to dress with her usual care and descend to the lower floor.

Fantine’s careful touches seem to be gone from the house entirely in favor of Cosette’s own – so strange, that the absence of a certain too-delicate frilliness is suddenly foreboding. No, this home is a little more Spartan, a little more cautious than the one Cosette loves.

Her father not yet at the table, Cosette dares a look into the back garden.

The back garden on Rue Plumet flourishes in the spring.

Cosette loves it best then, as winter slowly rescinds its harsh winds and the fragile stalks give way to deeper, more covering greens. The trees that shelter the garden drip with early, cold rains, and the plants spread out like new moss beneath them, flowers poking their bright heads free.

She has no compunctions about donning older dresses, not fashionable but comfortable and suitably worn, to tend the garden, coaxing it toward the full potential of its growth. Cosette tends to eschew both the formal and the landscape gardens, and indulges in a wild, private sanctuary only precisely checked. The barefoot adventuress peeks out in the garden, rendering Cosette at once the demure and elegant garden-dweller she is in the Luxemburg Gardens and likewise half-spirit, some nature-spun sylph wending her way through trees, only ever half in sight of the gate.

It is a greater relief than Cosette can speak, to see her garden as it should be.

She swallows hard, checks her racing pulse, and fixes a calm, practiced smile on her face.

Her father at breakfast looks more careworn, more wary of the world. He is as humble as ever, but looks at her with a faintly wistful fondness and says nothing at all of her mother. Her mother, who is absent from the house.

Cosette, who lives in a world made of stories and shadows, where magic murmurs under Paris’ streets, is certain: something has happened, and only she remembers.

She keeps quiet, waits for her father to go out about his business and then waves Toussaint onto her trip to the market, insisting she intends to spend a quiet day working in the garden.

When both have left, Cosette hurries to her room and switches out her morning dress for a sturdy day dress, a sensible cotton twill, and a bonnet. She tucks her spending money away and writes a note for her father, feeling very apologetic. He will fret, and she does hate to make him worry so, but there is a way about repairing curses and undoing charms. There is power in a daughter striking out to save her mother’s life, but it’s a power and a risk that rests in Cosette’s hands alone.

In the end, Cosette slips out the back garden gate, her heart all caught in her throat.

The garden rests steady at her back, its tall and draping trees shading her from the overcast glare of the mid-morning sky. It looms, like a forest of secrets, a world away from streets she isn’t used to walking alone.

Cosette gathers all her meager courage, and steps out the gate.

She walks, calmly as she can, down the little lane behind the house, and down the street.

There is a wife who lives nearby and likes to read in her own garden, and though they are only passing acquaintances, Cosette knows she likes to have her fortune read by some reputable woman in the city, and as Cosette knows no magicians, it seems a place to start.

It is her luck that this young wife, only some decade older than Cosette and so inclined to amiability, is out today, enjoying the brief respite from spring showers, and she waves to see Cosette. “Good morrow!”

“Good morrow!” Cosette replies, and crosses closer. “Are you well?”

“Very, I thank you,” she says. “Are you?”

“Yes, and I thank you!” Cosette tucks her hands in the folds of her skirts, feeling as though this subterfuge is greater than she knows it to be. “While I have you a moment, a question: What is the name of your fortune reader? I know you praise her highly.”

The woman twinkles like a starling, brightening to be asked for advice. “Oh, yes! Shall I give you her residence, as well?”

“I would be most grateful,” Cosette replies, and listens carefully when given directions as well, and promises to give her neighbor’s name.

She thanks her kindly and bids her a good day before she continues on her way, making as though circling around to the front of her house. Rather, Cosette continues in that direction for a few streets before she turns, making her way toward the address given.

It is a busy day, and few have eyes for a young woman hurrying along the street with no fuss, and Cosette walks as though she can outrun her reservations with enough time. She does not, of course, but she has come this far and makes up her mind to continue even so.

The building in question, at least, reveals itself to be well-kept and on a somewhat quiet street; Cosette looks up at the shallow casements, thrown open in the brief bout of good weather, and goes to introduce herself to the fortune-teller, who answers the door at once.

The woman herself is a few years older than Cosette, well-dressed, with a plump figure and dark brown eyes so close to black they could almost be deep and midnight water. Her mouth curves up in a pleasant smile, like the possibility of laughter is always a moment away.

“Please, call me Musichetta,” she says, when Cosette has given her name and reference, and dips her bright skirts in a brief curtsy. “A pleasure.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Cosette says and finds that she means it. It seems so long ago that she’s spoken to a woman near her own age, let alone one so vivid and friendly. “Thank you, for your assistance.”

Musichetta smiles wider, cheeks dimpling charmingly. “Of course! Come, have a seat.”

Over the course of a cup of tea, Cosette tells Musichetta everything she’s noticed, about the strange differences and her certainty that things have changed. Musichetta listens thoughtfully, occasionally asks a question, and is quite terribly kind about it all.

When Cosette finishes her cup, Musichetta holds out a hand for the faintly-worn porcelain, and peers into it.

Cosette has never seen someone do a working before, not more than the little luck-works common to any household. She hardly expects something loud and flashy, more performance than substance, but it takes her aback all the same to see a faint golden sheen to Musichetta’s eyes, the glittering sparks that fall from her fingertips when she snaps them over the cup she’s just refilled.

“Well, you certainly have the right of things,” Musichetta tells her, a faint strain to her voice, but her hands shake not at all as she passes the cup back to Cosette and pours more tea into her own. “The best I can see, someone has made a wish that alters the course of your mother’s life and, therefore, of yours. My power is too small to undo so great a thing, but there is certainly a way for you to correct the situation, and I can escort you to someone who will be better able to tell you how.”

“Thank you,” Cosette says, surprised. This world seems so lonely and grey, it is startling to realize that she may not have to do all of this alone. Two women walking alone is still unusual, but a far cry better than Cosette traversing the city by herself, as she had thought she might.

Musichetta smiles, and talks with Cosette about fashions until they finish their tea. Gracefully, she puts the pot and cups away, and retrieves her own coat and bonnet before moving to open her door with what seems to be understated prescience.

Cosette’s hand twitches up to make sure her bonnet is still in place, surprised to see two young men – students, perhaps? – directly outside the door. They look harmless enough, cheery and brimming with laughter, the shorter wearing quite fashionable pants and the taller in a slightly worn coat, visibly balding as he sweeps off his hat grandly to greet Musichetta.

“Laigle, how good of you to make your perch here,” Musichetta replies, all the laughter in her eyes bubbling to the surface. “And Joly, as well! Excellent. Now, I know you can hardly have other obligations, if you have come to see me, so I feel no compunction in asking: is your friend Combeferre in residence today?”

“Oh, that you would rather see Combeferre than us!” Laigle, the taller, cries, dramatically draping himself along the wall. “Musichetta, my very soul is injured. Joly, are you not wounded?”

“For once, no,” Joly answers dryly, though he continues smiling. “How could any of us hold a candle to Combeferre? But he declared to us his intent to visit Courfeyrac, and we may catch him there. A matter of business putting you on wing?”

Musichetta nods affably, and gestures Cosette closer. Cosette complies, perhaps shyly – she meets very few young men, though she has seen many of them laugh and rib one another as they stride past the gardens. She dares a dip of a curtsy, studying them with subtle curiosity from behind the protective bulwark of Musichetta’s shoulder.

Cosette is no stranger to the idea of young people in love, and though Fantine is careful in what she says, Cosette is aware that women, not quite so protected by their family’s security as she, may take friends of a certain intimacy. She cannot imagine Musichetta jaded or these men callous, when they all speak and look so fondly and easily, and keeps her questions behind her teeth.

“Yes,” Musichetta says. “This is Mademoiselle Fauchelevent, whom I am helping with a thorny problem, and I think Combeferre will be of aid. Cosette, these are acquaintances of mine, a M. Joly and a M. Lesgle, from Meaux.”

The two men offer her a bow, and Joly gives her a bright and cheerful smile.

“How do you do, mademoiselle?” he says, and now she sees that the heel of one boot is taller than the other as he leans on his cane, and the very faint markings along his face that suggest some manner of shapeshifter. His eyes, though, are kindly.

“Well, thank you,” Cosette replies, a polite lie though it is, and musters a smile in return. “And yourself, monsieur?”

“Very well, thank you!” Joly only smiles wider, and offers an arm to Musichetta. “Well, though I think there is little enough danger of missing Combeferre, shall we?”

“Certainly,” Musichetta agrees, and allows Cosette to slip out the door first so that she can lock up. “Now, my gentle friends, regale me with your latest tales of misadventure.”

Laigle-or-Lesgle laughs, and starts in on a story that seems to involve quite a few people they all know, a curse on the law school grounds, and a number of puns.

Though Cosette thinks she has more of a social presence and more acquaintances than the Cosette who might otherwise occupy this bizarre, half-step changed world, she tends to keep to her family, her parents who fret over her, and her charity and garden-strolls. She, certainly, never would speak to raucous students, has never had the sorts of misadventures that implies liveliness, nor even has had the sort of friend like Musichetta, who is witty and charming and quick with her tongue, but always glances towards Cosette to ensure she seems comfortable.

Cosette still feels too much a fresh sprout, newly exposed to the brisk city winds, to dare contribute, but she tries her best to think of puns that might make them laugh, had she the courage to say them, and thrills a little to be included even at the edges of this world.

They cross the Pont Saint-Michel and shortly after, the Pont au Change, and progress southeast along the quay, where the fog has finally burned off the Seine and the clouds bathe everything in silvery early spring light, before finally turning north. Cosette, though she certainly has not gone far at all, feels as though she _has_ , that the city, even the small circle of it she knows, has become a different place with her unfamiliar guides.

When they finally stop in front of a building, Cosette both abruptly wants to shrink back and is insatiably curious as to who could be so remarkable and yet, apparently, so normal. Lesgle, courtly, offers her hand up the rather steep front step.

She follows them up the stairs, keeping pace behind Joly while Lesgle hurries ahead to knock at a door.

“Courfeyrac,” he calls, “there are some very lovely ladies who have an inquiry for you, and I’d rather you answer your door than attempt to escape through the window.”

“You confuse me with yourself again, friend, as _I_ am not the one with two wings, let alone four,” comes the somewhat arch reply as the door opens. “I like to think I have rather more sense than to attempt to fly or to flee. My apartment is rather full up at the moment, but come in.”

Musichetta shakes her head and gives Cosette a conspiratorial and faintly exasperated look, and Cosette has to muffle a giggle behind her hand. Somehow, it is harder to feel desolate or quite so overwhelmed, despite the enormity of the task before her.

Courfeyrac turns out to be an attractive young man, very southern by his speech, with a head of glossy black curls and a catlike air to his brown eyes, who is tolerantly amused when Lesgle and Joly admit they have come seeking Combeferre. He too is all courteous grace, neither overbearing nor inappropriate, but Cosette all the same feels humbled by his sleek verve and charm.

He leads them into his apartment without complaint. “Combeferre! A matter of business for you!”

“Oh? Ah, mademoiselle, hello again,” Combeferre greets Musichetta with a smile, and then Joly and Lesgle more familiarly. He has a gentle sort of face, a quieter demeanor than his friends, but his coat is well-cut and good wool and his attention seems very weighty. “How may I be of assistance?”

Another of the men in the room, tall with an exceedingly fair face and stern features, seems to glance past Cosette almost dismissively, and it firms her resolve all at once even as she is bewildered by it. She sets her shoulders and steps forward, hoping for even a fraction of her mother’s unconscious grace.

“Beg pardon, Monsieur Combeferre,” Cosette says, tipping her chin up. “My name is Cosette Fauchelevent, and as my mother has been stolen from me, I seek your help.”

Combeferre looks at her as she speaks, and his wise, steady eyes are silver behind his glasses. A dragon!

Not in all the worlds has Cosette ever expected to meet a dragon: it is common knowledge that they tend to be reclusive, gatherers of arcane and lost knowledge. Her mother, she thinks faintly, always told her it was great luck to meet a dragon.

“Please,” Cosette adds, softer this time.

Combeferre smiles, just a touch. “I will certainly do what I may.”

Courfeyrac proves himself a gracious host and ushers the tall man, Joly, and Lesgle into the next room without prompting, casting a smile over his shoulder.

“I awoke this morning to find my mother missing, as though vanished from all the world and memory,” Cosette tells him at Musichetta’s encouraging nod. She details the strange differences of her home, though she keeps the changes to her father tucked in close, unable to speak about so intimate a family matter.

Oh, Cosette adores her parents. They do their best to protect her, to keep her safe and happy, and they are wonderfully kind. Perhaps they are both a bit too quick to efface themselves for her sake, but Cosette has years practice now in turning it back on them, stubbornly and quietly taking their examples until they are willing to treat themselves more kindly for her sake. There is a sadness that runs very deeply in each of them.

Fantine has never quite forgiven herself for leaving Cosette in the care of unsuitable guardians, no matter how little she could have known at the time. Her mother, kind and lovely, who has always been a little frail and a little worn, never quite recovered from the illness in her lungs that nearly killed her. She is so gentle with Cosette, so indulgent, likes to sit out on the bench by the garden while Cosette works, and to hear Cosette talk about whatever things come to her mind.

And Ultime, whose past is some large and tangled mystery he is ever reluctant to reveal to Cosette. Even Cosette, who has no magic, no talent of her own, can feel the weight of a story in her father, some journey like this, perhaps even stranger, that has left him with a grave and cautious manner. He dotes on Cosette, though, has doted on her ever since he rescued her from things she only dimly remembers, even before he married Fantine and they moved to Paris.

All her best memories are of them.

Cosette remembers so little of her early life, but she remembers her father taking her hand when she was scared and cold; she remembers being clutched to the chest of the mother she had nearly forgotten she had, told how very loved she was. In every moment since, they have loved her, and she loves them the same.

She will fix this, and bring back all they lost.

Conviction is a taste Cosette thinks she likes.

When she looks back up, Combeferre is studying her with those ineffable eyes. He has let the humanity of his form slip, ever so slightly, and though there’s no real visible difference, the sense of _power_ is immense, glinting like light off of metal work or the sparking crackle of lightning. All contained behind the thoughtful, scholarly façade of a young student.

“I think your theory is correct,” Combeferre tells Musichetta, who nods with unassuming satisfaction, and returns his regard to Cosette. “You would be best off if you knew who made the wish that altered the lay of the world, but even without, there is a spell to break that wish. You will need to find a blossom of flowering heart’s-loss, the weight of a vow made in honest truth, and a piece of a cat’s grace. Bring them here, and I can restore what was, but it will be harder the longer it takes.”

Cosette shivers and blinks back a few unexpected tears. Of course there would be nothing easy in such a thing – but still, an answer as complicated as this is still better than nothing. Than letting her mother remain gone and lost. “Where should I start?”

Combeferre smiles, a surprisingly warm and gentle thing. “Well, we can ask the others if they have thoughts on where to start and, if you like, I can give you a charm to keep you from drawing much attention while you go.”

Relieved, Cosette nods, and shivers at the sudden wave of power that washes through her as Combeferre draws one slender finger from her forehead to the tip of her nose, and she is entirely uncertain whether the faint point of a talon that follows is her imagination or an echo of something realer.

“If you need anything,” Musichetta starts while Combeferre ducks out of the room to retrieve the rest of them, “come straightaway to my apartment, or here, or to the Café Musain – Joly made a note of it as we neared the Pont Saint-Michel, do you recall?”

Joly had mentioned a café but not given a name, but Cosette commits it to memory and nods. She dares to reach over and place a hand on top of Musichetta’s, as a friend might do. “I do. Thank you very kindly, I know this is rather a lot of trouble.”

Musichetta smiles to the point of dimples again. “It seems like the right thing to do. Surely we women must stand by one another, when magic and fate are involved?”

“Yes,” Cosette says, slowly, as she has never before considered it. “I suppose we must.”

Lesgle, when filled in on the situation, apologetically has no suggestions: “My luck runs very ill, I am afraid the curse-breakers I know will accept no recommendations.” The severe blond man who seems to soften to his friends, if not Cosette, has nothing to offer either. It is almost a relief: his presence is so heavily charged, Cosette almost feels as though she glimpses impossible things when he sits in the corner of her eye. Joly, a more soothing presence, hums thoughtfully and rummages in his coat pocket before offering her a woven charm, twisted threads of blue and undyed silk, piercing a shimmering, glass-like stone she doesn’t recognize, “To protect against infection, if care alone fails.”

Cosette thanks them all politely, and tucks Joly’s charm into a clever pocket she stitched into her sleeve.

Courfeyrac’s head tilts as he looks contemplatively thoughtful. “My roommate, Marius, is a solemn sort of fellow, but has made a friend of an old plant-sorcerer. I shall ask him if he might arrange an introduction for you. As to the rest, I shall think on that, too!”

Cosette thanks him rather more ardently.

It is, however, still early enough in the day, and Cosette has much to do, and little enough idea where to start. She takes her leave, awkward in this crowd of magicians and magical beings. They are so surprisingly vibrant, so cheerful and down to earth, Cosette feels almost swept away by how _much_ they are.

Still, she tells herself, an auspicious beginning!

Stories are never to be counted fully true, she knows, as she has lived one even if she barely recalls it. There is, however, a grain of truth, a distorted, rain-puddle reflection of _accuracy_ in them: the companions one makes while questing shape much of the quest itself. As light rebounds on metal and water and silvered glass, so emotion put into the cosmos reflects the emotions that come back. A story, after all, is a very unstable place to be, a web of cracking, thin ice with an ocean underneath.

Cosette barely stops short of running into yet another man on the stairs.

He has a solemn face, dark hair, a distracted air, and a slightly worn black coat, his hat already in his hands.

“Pardon me, mademoiselle,” he mutters, glances at her with dark eyes and then awkwardly away, his shoulders curled in. “I was just –”

He waves up the stairs a bit helplessly.

“Oh!” Cosette has become very daring today. She glances up the stairs, and then back at him – he could be a Marius. “Pardon me, monsieur, but do you happen to be a friend of Monsieur Courfeyrac?”

Startling, he looks back at her, blinking at her with wide dark eyes. The tips of his ears, she notes, are faintly pointed. “Ah, yes, that is to say, my name is Marius Pontmercy.”

His hand twitches as if toward a pocket and he smoothes it into a very precise bow.

She instinctively curtsies back. “My name is Cosette Fauchelevent. My apologies to bother you, but I was looking for a plant mage and Monsieur Courfeyrac mentioned you had the acquaintance of one?”

Pontmercy blinks, taken aback, and frowns for a moment before he nods. “That is so, a Monsieur Mabeuf, only just over the Pont d’Austerlitz, near the Jardin des Plants. Surely you would not walk there unaccompanied?”

His frown deepens at the thought, nearly disapproving, and Cosette can not quite raise herself to be indignant even with Combeferre’s protection. She had balked, after all, to think of crossing the river with a woman and an escort of two young men.

Perhaps Pontmercy simply meant she ought to take up a cab or wished to ascertain someone awaited her nearby; with the rigidity of his manners, he clearly meant no insult or insinuation of an unchaperoned walk. All the same, with Combeferre’s misdirection, who would notice Cosette, who would recognize her?

“I am on a quest,” Cosette tells Pontmercy, who looks rather abashed. “Those are streets I am unfamiliar with, to some extent – if you would do me the favor of an escort, I would be very grateful.”

Pontmercy glances back up the stairs before nodding stiffly and offering her an arm. “I shall see you safely there, mademoiselle.”

They walk in companionable quiet, and if it is a little stiff, the circumstances are strange enough. There is only a short way to go, besides. At least, a shorter distance than Cosette’s walk here.

The apartment he leads her to is rather worn down but still neatly kept, and the garden they catch a glimpse of is well-tended and lovely.

Monsieur Mabeuf turns out to be an elderly man, bookish and thin, who looks delighted to see Pontmercy, clasping his hands and greeting him fondly. Pontmercy, on his part, looks pleased and abashed at Mabeuf’s affection, and asks after his book collection before introducing him to Cosette.

“Would you like me to wait for you?” Pontmercy asks, diffident.

“No,” Cosette says slowly, and offers him a smile. “I think the next step is my own, but I thank you for your assistance. Perhaps I will see you again? Monsieurs Courfeyrac and Combeferre have offered their help.”

Pontmercy smiles back, still a touch self-conscious, but apparently sincere. “Until then, I suppose, Mademoiselle Fauchelevent.”

“Monsieur Pontmercy,” she replies, and watches him excuse himself. Mabeuf is studying her, though he has a kettle on and shortly pours them each a cup of some herbal blend.

“What help could I offer you?” Mabeuf asks her, a little creaky and dreadfully weary. He seems very threadbare, this old man, with heavy lines to his face.

Cosette recognizes in him the quiet suffering of too-little and accepts her cup of tea with grace.

“I have been tasked to gather ingredients for a spell to set things right,” Cosette tells him. “I am seeking a plant called flowering heart’s-loss. Do you know of it? I am happy to repay you as best I can, of course.”

Mabeuf frowns and his hands shake as he takes a drink, but he looks thoughtful. “It is not a plant that grows well in cities. I knew a gardener who was skilled enough to coax that plant forth, or would know how to find it. He rests under a curse, though, a tragedy, and I am not sure even this would pull him back. But… perhaps. If you could do something to ease his troubles when you ask, I could send you to him.”

Cosette has no experience with curses, but… have not the people she has met been kind enough to help her? If nothing else, could she not learn the details of this man’s curse and try to find information for a cure?

She folds her hands in her lap. Combeferre had said her way would be harder the longer she took, but this is still the first day. All of Cosette’s life has rested on those who loved her having the willingness to help her, at their own peril and expense. How lonely, to have no one to do such a thing.

“Monsieur Mabeuf, that I would gladly do,” Cosette promises. “I will do what I can for him, if you will send me to his dwelling. But is there nothing I can do for you?”

Monsieur Mabeuf shakes his head. “No, no, I am a simple old sorcerer, child, I mostly spend my time for my books and my plants.”

“Yes, I saw your garden!” Cosette exclaims, straightening with interest. “It was only in passing, but you had very lovely plants. I thought I saw some early tulips? I have never seen them with that variegation of color!”

It is a query that transforms the old man, life all but blooming in his cheeks. “Those are my tulips, yes! I was a botanist for quite some time, you see. Those are a very specific crossbreed. I intend and hope to naturalize indigo to France, you see, and that is my consuming project, but I quite enjoy the tulips as well.”

Cosette listens, curious, as he tells her more about his work and experiments, about the fruits he tends and the little plot he rents at the gardens nearby. Monsieur Mabeuf tells her as well of his fine collection of books, so many books and so old as Cosette has never seen in all her life, but most particularly of his own book of horticulture.

“Monsieur,” she says, thinking very fondly of her garden at the Rue Plumet and all the work she does there, of how much more she could do if she understood even a small portion of the things the old sorcerer mentioned, “Please, you must tell me where they print this book of yours!”

He does, and Cosette makes careful note of the address of the bookseller and the title, and thanks him quite profusely. Monsieur Mabeuf speaks humbly, but seems pleased, touched by her gentle enthusiasm in the way that he might have known, had he a grandchild, and heart warmed, in the way of a man who had rarely encounters those who love what he does.

“Ah, forgive me,” Mabeuf says, at length. “The day grows later, and you will want to be on your way. It will be very late to be walking for you, young lady – should you perhaps return tomorrow?”

“No, it is afternoon still,” Cosette protests, gently. “I have plenty of daylight left. Perhaps you could tell me where I ought to look, to find the gardener?”

“Well, if nothing else, you should have a guide,” he says, considering, and rises from the table, waving off her offers to help him up. Cautiously, he leans out the door, peering out into the late-afternoon sun for a long minute. He calls out, and a young woman skitters to a stop near the door.

Cosette can only see her backlit by the day, rendering her features a touch indistinct. Still, some things are plain enough: the girl’s clothes are petticoats and a chemise in tatters, disheveled hair tucked haphazardly under a scrap of a bonnet, her feet are bare, her wrists frail and thin, her features made sharp by the hollows of poverty. She looks only Cosette’s own age, under the weight of misfortune.

“Monsieur,” the girl says, hoarse and strangled and with a toss of her head, “what is it you want of me?”

Mabeuf smiles at her kindly. “Do your parents have need of you tonight? I believe you know the way through the forest at the edge of the city, do you not?”

“My parents have every need of me, and use of me, but their own business tonight,” she replies, almost playful, and rocks back on her heels. “Do you need something from the forest?”

“There is someone in need of a guide to the Gardener,” Mabeuf tells her. “Would you mind? I would trade you a basket of apples for the favor.”

The girl steps scarcely closer, her toes not daring the threshold, and her eyes seem dark and dulled but clever all the same. “Well, a trade is fair. I will do you the favor, Monsieur Mabeuf.”

He nods and crosses to Cosette, offering her a hand to her feet, whispering conspiratorially in her ear. “She calls herself wicked, but this same girl has watered my flowers at night. She shall do you no harm.”

Cosette believes him, moved greatly by the tragedy that drives people to such extremes. She is sheltered, but not so unworldly that the charity she offers, with her family, has not opened her eyes to how her state and her mother’s might have fallen, without her father’s aid. Surely no truly evil creature would water an old man’s flowers or do him a favor for a handful of apples.

The girl startles at the sight of Cosette, laughs in a way that might have been bright and ringing had her voice not been so raw, and grins at her with a graveyard of teeth. “Well, mademoiselle! Well, indeed! To the forest before dark, and no mistake.”

Cosette presses a handful of coin from her purse into Mabeuf’s hands with a quiet smile. “Please, I insist: for your help and your time. I will purchase your book, when all of this is resolved, but… perhaps you might sell me some of your tulip bulbs, in the fall?”

Mabeuf looks outmaneuvered and surprised, and falls back on pressing Cosette’s hands gently. “If I cannot convince you otherwise… oh, very well. I think I can part with a few bulbs, come the fall. Here, then, take this lantern, just in case.”

“Thank you,” Cosette says again, and ties the lantern about her waist as she follows the girl out into the streets, hurrying to catch up with her. “I must thank you, as well! I know of the forest, but not enough to traverse it. It is kind of you to help. Please, what is your name?”

“Éponine,” says the girl, a wild animation taking over her features. “And you are the gentlewoman whose family my father took such an interest in, this past week! I had wondered what he meant to do, since the world seemed to change very little to _me_ , yet here you are, amongst the likes of us, searching for something on your own!”

Taken aback, Cosette blinks at Éponine, unsure why anyone should take interest in her family. “Then I thank you, Éponine. My name is Cosette. But, please, what do you mean, your father took interest in my family?”

Éponine laughs again, gaily and then, all at once, furious and despondent. She slows her gait and studies Cosette from the corner of her eye. “He said he should have gotten more money than he did, if you all were so well decked out, that we should be better off. Well! He made a wish. My father goes by another name these days, but it was Thénardier once.”

It takes all of Cosette’s will not to stumble on the cobblestones. Éponine! Éponine! That name had meant nothing to her at all to hear, but the other name, even with her dim memories, sends a shiver down her spine, like a shadow that moves when one tells themselves that there is nothing living in the dark.

“Why are you telling me this?” Cosette asks, her chest numb, frozen through like ice.

Éponine looks at her for a long while, humming an unfamiliar jaunty tune. “Well, it is funny, is it not? All that work, and you plan to undo it before he reverses any fortunes, ha!”

No, Cosette does not particularly think it funny, stricken as she is by flashes of memory that come only with prompting. Dimly, she thinks she envied Éponine once, whose treasured doll was broken and faded after all, and Éponine, now, is accounted little better than a doll in her father’s eyes. Cosette wants to weep, all for having the love of her parents.

“Just because I dash his hopes if I succeed does not mean I wish to further injure you,” she says cautiously. Oh, but this is more difficult than giving alms or baskets of provisions.

Beside her, Éponine’s dark, dark eyes are piercing. Her mouth twists as if in a sneer, lopsided with a strange longing. “Is that so, mademoiselle? Then, I thank you.”

“You have helped me, why should I not help you?” Cosette retorts, cheeks flushing sharply. “Do I not owe you a debt? You are right, I have an excess of good fortune, surely I can spare some to return a favor.”

“Charity?” Éponine asks, shaking her head, and does a little skipping step, a half turn that’s a mimicry of a dance. “The grace of a princess to a pauper when her quest is done, to leave the past in the past? Yes, mademoiselle, I have an education; I know how to read and to write, my orthography is flawless.  And a profession of my own as well.”

“Not charity,” Cosette says quietly, stomach clenching at Éponine’s implication. She chews her lip; a poor habit. Perhaps it is blasphemous, but Cosette, Cosette loves her mother and knows a very little of her history. Enough that Cosette, whose world is her garden, tales of quests, and charity to those whose lives are made wretched, has suppositions on things she is not supposed to know. It is blasphemous, perhaps, but Cosette cannot place blame on those wretched. Was not she wretched? Might not she be the same, without her father’s intervention, her mother’s? “No more than you did this for me out of charity or, or… the matter of stories.”

She looks away.

“I still wake from nightmares, sometimes,” Cosette admits. “If employment or a gift enough to establish yourself – and your sister? – would help, then… I would like to repay your kindness.”

Éponine falls silent again, feet padding silently along the cooling streets.

The late afternoon sun has painted the sky brilliant pinks and oranges, yellows still shading the clouds like oil paints. It casts Paris in a lovely light, warm and near to glowing, ethereal. The shadows stretch across the streets, indigo and violet. It could be another realm altogether, beautiful and strange, as they walk southeast near the Seine toward the edge of the city, where tall trees begin to lift their towering heads above the roofline.

“My sister, yes,” Éponine finally says. There is something about her, not fragile, but… delicate, perhaps, a shade of softness hidden under all her bluster and laughter. “A brother, too. Your words are quite generous.”

“Thrice on my name,” Cosette says, with a sturdiness she was unaware she possessed. “I will do what I can for you and your siblings.”

She slips a hand into her sleeve and pulls out Joly’s charm, holds it out. “A token, so you have proof of my word.”

Éponine looks at her, hard, before she takes the charm. She lifts it up to the light, watches the stone spin and shimmer as the threads twist. “There _is_ magic in this. What does it do?”

“Holds back illness, I think,” Cosette says, without much understanding of what Joly had tried to explain to her. “It should keep wounds from turning bad.”

It earns her a thoughtful hum, then Éponine ties the charm to the inside waist of her petticoat. Her fingers are knobbled, worn by hunger to bare stems. All the unspeakable circumstances, their shared strange history, sits between them. Éponine smiles, fey. “Well! We will see what you remember, when you work all of this out.”

She drags the ribbon from her hair, bedraggled and maybe yellow once. The edges have frayed. She says: “A reminder, then.”

Cosette takes the ribbon without flinching, and, meeting Éponine’s eyes, ties it around her wrist. It makes Éponine laugh again, cracking painfully.

They reach the edge of the city, shadows slipping through a fence that is not there, and the forest stretches before them. The trees are heavy and old, dense as a field of grass in the height of spring, and a road carves its rickety way in.

“Follow the road until you reach the water,” Éponine tells Cosette, an unearthly shade in the setting sun. “Walk around the east bank, and the stream there will lead you to a grove. The Gardener lives there.”

For all the nights in her wooded garden, Cosette cannot recall a time she walked out at night, and certainly not alone. The night promises to be chill, but she has a coat and good boots.

“Alright,” Cosette says. She takes in a shivering breath and walks forward into the woods.

The trees close up around her, Paris fades to a pinpoint of dim light behind her.

With shaking hands, Cosette fumbles her lantern free and lights it.

The forest is quiet and peaceful, little different than her garden, really. Damp moss clings up the sides of trees and the grass lays long and thick on the ground, the path more knobby scuffs of dirt than bare and level earth.

It seems like it has been a long time, since she was truly afraid of the dark. Why should she not have been? Even now, she can see how the long shadows, driven back by her lamp, would be enough to frighten all but the boldest men. A little girl with no light at all, in the winter cold?

Cosette shudders in sympathetic memory. But the forest here just seems… calm. Foggy, perhaps, misty with power enough to creep up against the city, to nourish strange plants and beasts and beings in its bower.

Even the stars are faint here, their own ancient power just enough to push through the weight of branches, and to sparkle in the black mirror of the lake that opens up before her.

She had felt so lucky that her father found her in the woods and took her away with the promise of somewhere _better_ , of her mother. Cosette has grown up in a world of stories: she had thought, at the time, that she must have passed some sort of test. That she, wretched girl though she was, had said a kind word to a grandmother she had since forgotten, and that a family, a _real_ family, and somewhere warm and safe was her blessing, rather than gems to fall from her mouth.

Éponine, by rights, should have had the toads. But how unfair, to hold a little girl deserving of punishment for mimicking her mother, to condemn her for not knowing better! Cosette had not, how should have Éponine?

Besides, it is clear, to Cosette at least, that Éponine does not speak cruel words. She has lived harder and more painfully than Cosette has since, but still clings to something playful and soft, still stops to water an old man’s flowers or do him a favor. Does she not deserve better, now?

Cosette’s mouth tastes of ashes.

She sighs and fishes into her purse for a coin, which she lets fall into the water.  A toll, perhaps, or an offering, which is always a wise caution in a place of power.

Remembering Éponine’s directions, Cosette circles the bank to the east until she finds a path, and retreats again into the thick embrace of branches.

She walks, and the wind stirs the leaves under her feet.

She walks, and the cold stings like nettles on her skin.

She walks, and the rain drips slowly through the trees.

Her lantern is steady, but she fears it will gutter and dim. Slowly, slowly, though, light grows in the distance, from a speck to a beacon.

Cosette squints as she comes into the dell, her bonnet shielding her face but not doing a thing to clear the mist.

A man stands there, tall and dark-haired, holding a lantern of his own. At his side stands a young linden tree, sprightly and stately, smooth grey trunk crowned with spade-shaped leaves, rustling soothingly in the winds.

“Are you the Gardener?” Cosette asks him.

“I am he,” says the man, brows knit with concern. There is an old oilcloth draped around his shoulders, but he has no hat to cover the sharp shape of his ears, seemingly unbothered by the damp.

“Monsieur Mabeuf said you could assist me,” Cosette explains, suddenly feeling foolish and small, a songbird buffeted by stronger weather than it could prepare for.

The Gardener assesses her sympathetically. “I am not sure how much help I can be to anyone, but I shall try. Perhaps, though, you would rather take some sleep for the night? We can speak in the morning, when there’s light.”

Cosette, worn-out and overcome, with the silent patter of a heart overworn by memories she had quite forgotten still lingered, nods. She follows him to the door of what turns out to be a small, rough cabin with a thatched roof, and hesitates when he opens the door.

“Make yourself comfortable, mademoiselle,” the Gardener tells her kindly. “I have need for less sleep or comfort these days; I shall stay the night under the branches of the linden tree.”

“Thank you, monsieur,” Cosette replies, mustering a smile, and ducks into the cabin, locking the door behind her. A low fire cracks and pops in the hearth, and Cosette feeds it another log before she turns to the narrow, slightly dusty-looking bed.

She scarcely recalls hanging up her clothes to dry before falling into a deep, restless slumber.

When she wakes in the morning, the sun is pushing its way through the small window, spreading delicate tendrils across the wooden floor. The day is warmer than the one before, like the rain has all drifted down south to wash over green fields and rich soil.

Sneezing when she stirs a puff of dust, Cosette refolds the worn quilt at the end of the bed and begins the careful process of dressing and ordering her clothes. Her hair, she is sure, is an untidy mess, but no mirror evidences itself to aid her.

After a moment of dithering, Cosette winds her hair on top of her head in a simple and undignified but manageable knot, and decides the foreparts of her hair retain enough curl to stick out from the brim of her hat. Well, then, as put together as she is going to be, given everything.

Cosette adjusts her hat to steady herself, then steps outside, peeking around the door.

The Gardener is awake, already or still, and stands by the linden tree, resting a hand on its bark. He looks over at her and smiles, unthreatening. There is a fearsome scar across his face, but his hands look worn and gentle, those used to working in a garden.

“Good morrow, monsieur,” Cosette greets, closing the door behind her. “I thank you again for the use of your lodgings.”

“Good morrow, mademoiselle,” the Gardener replies, tipping his head in acknowledgement. “You were welcome to it. May I ask what you need you had of me, urgent enough to drive you through the forest at night?”

Cosette nods. “My mother, sir, is wished away and forgotten – I find myself the only one to remember her. It is a cruel thing! I learned what I must bring to try to undo such a horrid act, and Monsieur Mabeuf bade me seek your assistance, and to offer you any I could in return.”

The Gardener looks thoughtful, slowly brushing the dirt from his hands. “Yes, I see. A cruel thing indeed, to be forgotten – or to forget! What aid do you seek, mademoiselle?”

“Flowering heart’s-loss,” she tells him. “I have never heard of such a plant, and so it must be quite rare or difficult to procure, but I will do what I must, to help my mother.”

“I understand.” The Gardener sighs. “I would readily help you, but I cannot leave this grove. You see, this linden tree was once my wife, tall and wise and admirable in every sense, but she is placed under a curse. A curse I cannot break, for I am cursed as well. My name is forfeit, and all my memory – I know I have a son, but he is as lost to me as his mother, when he has only her name. Cruel things, indeed!”

“Oh,” Cosette says, stricken with sympathy. Yes, then, he would understand, as she could understand. She could scarcely imagine the pain of knowing her mother lay beyond her reach for years, let alone to have lost her own sense of selfhood. Her _name_. When she speaks, it is not to fulfill her promise to Mabeuf, but out of the sheer empathy and kindness of someone who once was lost and who found herself through the love of others. “Is there aught I can do to assist _you_? To help you with your curses?”

The Gardener looked at her with a sharp and piercing gaze, not in the manner of the honed sword-edge, but rather the wary thorns of a briar-thicket. “Perhaps.”

Cosette does not know what she can do: she has no wand, no fairy to call on to undo such a transformation. All the same. “Do you have any idea what might break the curse?”

He shakes his head. “I believe we hold the keys to breaking one another’s curses, for I cannot remember until I recall my name, and no one else would know it.”

“Well, I shall try my best,” Cosette promises. Feet shy on the loamy ground, she approaches the linden tree and lets her fingers brush the bark. She has no skill with magic but some with plants, and that seems a good a place as any to begin. More firmly, she sets her hands to the bark and searches for anything out of the ordinary, eyes darting over trunk and leaves.

A prickling creeps up her hands and into her arms. She yelps and pulls her hands back.

“It is only the magic in the tree you feel,” the Gardener tells her, reassuring. “It will not harm you. My apologies, I ought to have warned you.”

“No harm was done!” Cosette pushes her hands against the bark again, shivering as the tingling flows once more. She sinks into the feeling, futilely looking for some sign, but nothing comes. Minutes, she stands there and nothing comes.

She misses her mother, who seems to slip further away each moment she spends here.

Interest unfurls in the back of her mind, a cat half-blinking awake from sleep.

Cosette gasps at the shock like winter cold, and the sensation fades back to that faint, inert trembling. Tentatively, she lets her longing and sorrow fill her, and the tree responds. The more time she spends there, the less it feels like a _tree_ under her hands, concern and comfort percolating slowly in the curve of Cosette’s spine.

It is exquisitely strange to pour out this much of her heart. Intimacy, easily shared between the like-minded strangers who become friends in a moment, is still not so vulnerable as presenting a pained heart in all its sorrow and fear and hope, when there is so little room to shy away or hold back. Like holding a mirror to the soul or to the heavens, there is an infinity of connection, a thousand stars met by a thousand stars, or the depths of the ocean beneath its silvered surface.

The soul encased in a tree reaches back and up, like the inattentive reverie of grief shattered suddenly by a child’s whimper. The Gardener’s wife turns from her cursed, root woven window and steps back to awareness as Cosette trips backwards, scraped raw with emotion.

She steps free from the linden tree, which parts around her and seals behind. A tall woman, and lovely, her slightly stern features softened by bright brown eyes, with a head of black curls traced through with silver grey, her dress an old-fashioned floating white linen. Her eyes lock on her husband. “Georges.”

“Marie,” Georges says, relieved adoration suffusing his being, returned to himself all at once as she speaks his name. He looks at her like she’s rain on summer-cracked earth, his hand coming up to tuck back a curl of her hair as he steps close to her. “I forgot your hair could be so wild.”

Marie laughs, catching Georges’ hand in her own, curling her fingers around it as she looks back at him, ravenously cataloguing his features even as her smile teases. “Rarely, but in my youth, I hardly left it loose enough to be tossed about by the wind.”

Georges laughs too, and they bend their heads together, forehead pressed to forehead, fingertips tracing the outlines of one another’s faces as if to relearn them.

Cosette watches them, quiet and entranced. Surely later tears would follow, and all the complicated reckoning of lives lost, but this moment is made of unbridled joy, as when the very heavens open and the clouds clear, revealing a dawn that is itself restitution for a long and storm-ridden night. It is a breathtaking thing to witness.

At last, they break apart and Marie turns to look at Cosette, something strikingly familiar in the set of her high cheekbones and arched brows.

“I thank you for the part you played in my release, mademoiselle,” she says, dipping into a curtsy. “I am Marie Pontmercy, and I owe you greatly.”

“Cosette Fauchelevent, madame,” Cosette replies, a plain truth. “I am very glad to be of help.”

“All the same. I could not wish my own son were kinder.” Marie pauses, and then looks to her husband with sudden trepidation. “Is he…?”

Georges’ face clouds with unspeakable sorrow, a devastation of an intimate grief never truly healed. “With your father, my love, when last I saw him.”

“My father?” Marie repeats, her voice cracking and rising. “My father!”

Her grief, fresher, is clearly too great, and she covers her face in her hands, shoulders trembling in furious devastation.

“Beg pardon,” Cosette murmurs, hardly daring to shuffle forward, so wary of intruding on their elation and their mourning, but she has finally placed the niggling sense of familiarity, form and name alike. “I am very sorry, but, does your son have the name Marius?”

They both glance at her, startled, and Marie blinks as if to clear her eyes while Georges slowly straightens.

“Yes,” he says, near dreamily, as if the details of his life are slowly drifting back to him. “Yes, Marius.”

Cosette’s smile unfurls without direction or thought, and she can scarcely keep herself from rocking forward on her toes with sudden joy at being able to reduce their sorrow. “Oh! You see, I made the acquaintance of a Marius Pontmercy only the other day, through his roommate.”

Marie sighs, her tense features easting, and she barely seems to retain her composure. “Is he well?”

“He looks well,” Cosette reports, refusing to blush. She thinks back, on that stiff, solemn young man with his harsh courtesy and his kindness to an old man. “Yes, he seems well. He lives on the Rue de la Verrerie – I do not recall the number, but perhaps I could take you?”

Georges and Marie share a look, complicated and yet implausibly clear, the quiet agreement of two people who know one another very well, even after strange, altering experiences.

“A message, perhaps?” Marie suggests, and Georges nods. Their hands find each other’s, and they clasp them with melancholic ferocity.

“A message, of course,” Cosette agrees. “He is known to Monsieur Mabeuf, as well, and mayhap I shall ask him in what manner it best to inform him.”

“We are twice over in your debt,” Georges says, hoarse and a little gruff, but earnest. He bows his head and seems to draw strength when Marie presses his hand. “I can account you paid, at least in part. Come, I will show you your flower.”

He leads her from the grove, Marie staying behind to press her hands against her tree almost like an act of prayer, and Cosette hurryingly follows, skirts swept clear of the forest floor where no track or rut made itself clear.

She follows him through mossy, overhanging branches, where the darkness was more a function of the age of the forest than the sky above, and Georges leads her further in and further in.

Finally, on a sloped hillside, Georges brushes aside the dragging branches of a tree and gestures Cosette forward. Spread out on the hill, ringed in yellow-green grasses and still dotted with dew and the previous night’s rain, is a clustered field of red flowers. Their petals seem nearly to drip from their curved stalks, vibrant and startling dark red, small streaks of white or orange bisecting some of the larger petals.

“Flowering heart’s-loss,” Georges tells her, bending to touch his fingertips to the delicate blossoms, a fond look on his face. “It only grows in deep and hidden places.”

“It is very lovely.” Cosette cautiously dips closer, taking in the slight frill to the edges of the furled petals. “Is it poisonous?”

Georges shakes his head. “Only fragile. You ought to clip a few stalks to take with you, rather than risk disturbing the root systems – they are quite woven with one another, by now.”

Cosette nods and gingerly breaks off two hale stalks of flowers, wiping a bit of their sticky sap from her fingers as she lays them in her pocket, tucked in between folds of fabric to keep them from being crushed on her way back.

How strange, that such a small thing, something natural and yet something she has never before seen, could play so large a part in undoing a spell that altered the world so fundamentally.

“Thank you,” she tells Georges, rising to her feet. “I cannot express how much this means.”

“It was the least I could do, in thanks,” he replies, and leads her back through the woods.

Cosette bids them both farewell and promises to pass along her message. To herself, silently, she vows she will come back, if she can right the world, to make sure the curse stays broken still. Will break it again, if that is what it takes.

For the moment, in the mild morning,  the cold drifting away to chill, Cosette retraces her steps back across the forest, around the pond, and along the same, bare track that lead her in. Her lantern, unneeded in the morning, rests on her other hip, away from the flowers.

The way back is far quicker than the way there, and Cosette reaches the city before midmorning. She skirts up along the banks of the Seine to avoid the tenement, and hurries back to the apartment of Monsieur Mabeuf.

A sudden shyness strikes her: she is dressed, still, in yesterday’s clothing, the hem of her dress muddy and mussed. But, then, what is a little touch of untidiness in the face of a pursuit?

She knocks.

He answers.

Cosette returns the lantern and speaks kindly to him, tells Mabeuf of breaking a curse, and watches as he smiles as though a great weight has lifted from his shoulders. He does not tell her much, but assures her that he will handle the delicate negotiations required in such a situation, and then graciously sends her on her way.

 Only… Cosette has now followed her only lead. She thinks that her vow to Éponine, codified in the shabby ribbon still wound around her thin wrist, may count for the second portion of the spell. The flowering heart’s-loss is still in her pocket. The last component, Cosette barely understands, let alone thinks she could obtain.

There is no way to know where best to look for the people who helped her the day before – Cosette thinks she could conceivably call Musichetta a friend, but not so much the others, who she scarcely knows and are men besides. Still, Courfeyrac’s apartment, and Pontmercy’s, is only a short walk away. If either is in, they may know where to find Combeferre. Should that not be the case, the café Joly pointed her to is on the way back to Musichetta’s place. It would at least be a start.

Self-consciously touching her hairline where Combeferre’s misdirection spell began, Cosette crosses the bridge back to the eastern side of the Seine, and up along the quay as a few spare, anxious rainclouds scatter their spray of rain in the cool sunlight. The drops that speckle her hands are strangely warm, almost comforting, and the fine mist is in its way refreshing in the stagnant air of the city.

Cosette, still unused to walking alone but finding herself strangely enjoying it, for all she misses her father’s ponderous company, slows her pace to a comfortable stroll. There is little enough need to pass through this part of the city, most days, and there is a quiet, eager hunger for new things in her breast.

The number of Courfeyrac’s building, when she arrives, is number 16, of which she makes mental note. Cosette fears she may have to borrow a quill or ink-pen to make a list for herself of things that she needs to remember, if it will travel with her at all. Likely best to memorize them if she can.

For now, she slips into the building and up the stairs, as quiet on her feet as ever, a habit she has never quite managed to break. She knocks at the door.

Courfeyrac, not Pontmercy, answers. “Ah, mademoiselle! Good day, may I help you?”

“Good day, monsieur,” Cosette replies, unable to help a smile at his vigor and brightness. “A brief favor only. Might you know where I could find Monsieur Combeferre?”

“So I do.” Courfeyrac returns her smile, charming, with a liquid grace. His eyes seem too glow less in the hall, or he simply is less cautious of their nature fully inside his space. “I shall write the address down for you, as I am afraid I cannot walk you there myself. Have you had much luck in your search?”

“Some,” Cosette allows. “Some of it is still opaque to me, but I have hope that Monsieur Combeferre or Musichetta may enlighten me. Thank you, likewise, for your offer – it would be much appreciated! Is it far to go?”

He shakes his head. “No, no, not far at all in the scheme of things. Very near, and I think no trouble to you in getting there. A moment, I will fetch you that paper.”

Courfeyrac leaves the door open even as he turns back in, his rooms still as neatly furnished as the day before. When he returns, it is with a small scrap of paper and something that glints. “Here you are.”

Cosette accepts them and frowns faintly at the piece of metal – a circle of gold. “Monsieur, I do not…”

He smiles at her, somehow at once knowing and faintly rueful. “I think there is another who might have given you something similar, and perhaps more effectively for the rarity of his altruism, but I am here and anything freely given is a good choice for a spell. If you take it to Combeferre, he will know what it is. Please, it is a small thing that I am pleased to do.”

Thoughtful, she studies him. He seems sincere and overall kind, whose friends seem to hold no resentment to him, and he seems to expect nothing from her, and has pushed no bounds of propriety. Very well.

“I thank you then,” Cosette says. “I shall show it to Combeferre, and perhaps he will tell me what it is you have done! I apologize, if I have disturbed you at an inconvenient time.”

“Nonsense.” Courfeyrac waves a hand easily. “The vein of friendship rarely falters. If there is aught I can assist with elsewise, I am sure Combeferre will know how to find me. In the meantime, if I catch sight of Joly or Bossuet flitting about the city, shall I have them let Musichetta know you are safely returned?”

“Please, that is very kind.” Cosette is touched, though she knows there is a great deal of context absent from her awareness. Yet, it seems to her that every kindness is greater, all for being done out of a good heart, than because she is known to them.

She bids Courfeyrac farewell, gallantly returned, and retreats down the stairs, peering at the address slip in her hand, which is truly not far at all.

There exists a phenomenon whereby the familiar becomes unfamiliar, rending a city or a person an entirely new entity through the smallest shift in perspective. Every street and cobblestone imbued with new meaning, a necessary outcome of the viewer’s sense of themselves altering like a lightning bolt.

Her mother lived in this city as a young woman, Cosette thinks to herself. Surely she walked these streets, to pick up her sewing to do, or to meet a friend or someone who had come courting. Had Fantine ever wished to walk these streets as a student, to own a place in the city beyond the meager offerings laid out before her? Musichetta, dazzling and witty, seemed to hold her own with the young men, to command respect by sheer presence and joy as much as for her skill in plying her trade. Had Fantine once been the same, or content with her lot, as long as there was joy around her?

Does Cosette wish to walk these streets differently? Always, she has been content to walk step-in-step with her parents, to sit on benches in gardens and talk cheerfully about the flowers. Her amazed realization of her own features, her personage and desires, her sense of fashion, had come to her so recently still. She has been happy within the small confines of her world, but there are gardens she has never seen and manners of cultivation she has never learned.

What strange joy, to speak to others! To hear them laugh amongst themselves, and laugh as well!

Cosette, impossibly, wants both. She cherishes the closeness of her family, the knowledge that her mother likes to sit with her in her gardens, will say “the white flowers would be very nice for a border, but I am more inclined to blue, to match your lovely eyes” and smile at her fondly, and that her father will walk with her to mass and when Cosette gathers baskets to give to families who need them, will kiss her forehead with gentle approval and never begrudge a sou, who taught her letters when she was small. She loves them dearly, these two people who have given so much to give her a home and her happiness, whom she loves as the pale early-spring shoots love the sun. Only, she also wants, desperately now, to have friends with whom she can chatter, who will laugh at her sense of humor, always cheekier than she thinks a well-behaved lady should perhaps rightly be.

She has always counted herself lucky, known herself to _be_ lucky that she has no need to scramble for work to keep a roof over her head, but she is… at once happy and lonely.

This strange freedom will be hard to forfeit, Cosette thinks wistfully. Worth it, though, to have her mother home again, to have her father’s face less lined.

Besides, she will have obligations left to discharge even when the world is put to rights. Cosette cannot know what will come of that, and shall hope it is a kind future to all the people she loves as much as to herself.

She shakes free her tumultuous thoughts as she checks the paper Courfeyrac had given her again. At last, she has arrived on the correct street, and from there it is a little enough matter to identify the correct building. Cosette slips in the side door and up the stairs, following Courfeyrac’s directions, and hopes the door at which she knocks is the correct one.

It must be, for Combeferre opens it moments later. His silver eyes are still eerie enough she cannot help but note them, but compassionate all the same, and he greets her courteously. “Mademoiselle Fauchelevent, good day. How may I be of service?”

“Good day, Monsieur Combeferre,” she replies. “Pardon me for appearing unannounced, but I have, I think, gathered what I could of what you of me, and could use direction for the rest. If this is a good time?”

“It is. Please, come in.” Combeferre steps back, opening the door wider. Inside is a carefully maintained hoard of neat bookshelves, more stacked on tables, and scientific instruments, and jars of obscure plants and bits of things consumed in spells.

Cosette does her best not to gape, instead nodding to the tall, blond man from the day before, and another of their friends she has yet to meet in the sturdy and carefully clean clothes of a working man. Both return her nod and greetings, and the tall man rises.

“We will leave you to your business,” he says, soft-spoken but firm with a sort of unshakable conviction, tucking what must be a packet of papers into his coat. “I trust I shall see you tomorrow?”

“Of course, Enjolras,” Combeferre replies, sounding fond, and reaches out to touch Enjolras’ elbow as he makes to leave. “I thank you for your company. And you for yours, Feuilly. I look forward to continuing our discussions later.”

“As do I.” Feuilly smiles at him and goes to retrieve his hat, nodding cordially at Cosette.

Enjolras follows a moment later, pausing only briefly to press a hand to Combeferre’s, something august in his bearing, the slim sturdiness of a birch. He still shimmers at the corner of her eyes, a golden nimbus humming with power barely contained by human form. There is a twist to his full mouth, something like dismissal or disdain, but when she inclines her head and meets his eyes as he passes, it softens to something not quite so harsh, and he gives her a polite nod.

She turns to watch them go, wondering what to make of this group of people who seem so very _strange_.

“My apologies if I inconvenienced you,” Cosette says softly, but Combeferre shakes his head.

“Not at all. You had a question for me?”

“I did, yes. Ah, but Courfeyrac asked me to show this to you? He said you would know its meaning.” Cosette fumbles for the coin and offers it out to Combeferre.

Now that she knows to look for it, Combeferre’s dragonish grace is easily visible as he reaches out, turning the coin between his fingers as he peers at it. A smile blossoms on his face as he looks back up at her. “This, I think, shall do for a cat’s grace, which is always more powerful when freely given.”

“Oh! I am glad of that.” Cosette still finds the explanation hazy, but even with magic as common as it is in Paris, shapeshifters especially prefer to keep their secrets for precisely these reasons, and she can certainly respect that. Secrets are a heavy burden to bear, and scrutiny even more so.

She reaches into her pocket and withdraws the flowering heart’s-loss. Despite the spring cool, the petals have wilted somewhat for their long walk, a few bruised. Still, they have lost little of their color, and she sets them lightly on the table before looking up at Combeferre. “I have a… symbol of a vow made in earnest, too. Unless the magic requires something more formal?”

“Such a symbol is more powerful still than a binding contract – an emblem, more than word on paper alone, has longer been called proof of intent,” Combeferre tells her. “I think these shall do, if you are prepared?”

Cosette nods, more firmly than she thought she might. “What must I do?”

Combeferre turns to his desk and pours a measure of black ink into a shallow dish, swirling it carefully. “To start, add a measure of your blood to this. I have both washed this scalpel in vinegar and boiling water, for your peace of mind.”

“To what end?” Cosette asks, tilting her head and stepping closer.

“Vinegar gained some note last century as a method to avoid the spread of cattle plague in several instances, and Anton van Leeuwenhoek reported it to kill animalcules, though of course the theory of spontaneous generation is rather thoroughly cast in doubt. The boiling of water and plague-contaminated items may be more familiar to you, but it seemed to me logical to extend that to tools likewise exposed to the elements before use, to prevent the presence of those same animalcules,” Combeferre explains. “Both have ancient historical precedent as well. It reduces the frequency of infections, I have found, though little work has been done on why that may be the case.”

“Oh!” Cosette considers that unfamiliar deluge of information, something she had never much considered and has little understanding of. “Yes, I can see how that might be.”

It earns her an approving look as Combeferre lifts up a sharp knife, inspecting its edge with a thorough eye. Cosette stretches out her arm, heart fluttering in her chest at the prospect of the pain as she rolls her sleeve out of the way. The scalpel is exquisitely sharp, though, and slices through the skin of her arm with a burning line of pain as it leaves a well of deep red in its wake.

She hisses softly as the pain begins to sting, but stoically holds her arm still over the dish, watching droplets fall into the ink and vanishing. After a short stretch, Combeferre gently turns Cosette’s arm and wipes the blood away with a clean cloth dipped in vinegar and wraps a length of spotless linen about it.

“There,” he says, turning again to stir the dish, while Cosette studies the bandage for a moment, so swiftly and precisely applied, before she returns her sleeve to its proper place and buttons the cuff.

Always, she has thought of knives as jagged, wicked things, not the clean, even slice left by the scalpel.

Combeferre sets the dish aside and looks back at her. “It will take me a few moments to set up; please, feel free to take a chair.”

“What exactly will all of this entail?” Cosette asks, faintly nervous and never having taken part in a magical ritual to this extent. She sweeps her skirts out of the way to sit, only now noticing that the floor has been cleared bare as Combeferre kneels down with a stick of chalk, starting to trace out a circle.

“From you? Little more than you’ve already done,” Combeferre tells her. He glances over his shoulder, superficially placid in a way that makes it difficult to recall that he is at least _centuries_ old, if not millennia. “Once the spell is set, you will have to sit in the center and recall – to _focus_ – on what needs to be restored. The rest will play itself out on its inherent magic.”

Cosette considers that. While she does, Combeferre traces three smaller circles, equidistant around the larger circle, each about the proper size for a hand to splay across it.

He rises, picks up the golden disk Courfeyrac gifted her first, and the dish of ink as well. Intent, squinting slightly, he brings them closer and, using a very fine brush, such as that an artist of miniatures might use, traces some arcane symbols on the face of it. Seemingly satisfied, he places in the first circle.

Stepping out, he holds a hand out to her. “You vow-symbol, please?”

“Oh! Yes!” Cosette hurriedly plucks at the tight knot, and then, much more gently, unwinds Éponine’s ribbon from her wrist, careful not to snag any of the loose threads as she delicately offers it out. It looks almost like a dingy white, here in the light, so far from the bright yellow Cosette suspects it onetime was.

She bites her lip as Combeferre peers at the ribbon, too. Is a vow a strong enough thing to bring with her to the world that will be again? Cosette desperately hopes so, because she truly meant it. She is not sure, yet, what the best path of fulfilling it is – somehow, she will make up for it. After all, could it not as easily have been her, left in desolate place, all her good-humor stripped to croaking, aching laughter because she had nothing more?

“Monsieur Combeferre,” Cosette starts, thoughtful and tentative. “Might I ask: why is it so simple now to reverse what has been done? A wish that reshapes the world seems like no small thing!”

He does not look at her this time, painting more small, slight characters on the ribbon, his fingers tracing its frayed and frail edges. “A wish like that is something forcibly taken, and for all the power it may hold, it is still trumped by things freely and graciously given, and from motives that are righteous. Is that not evident in all the tales of all the travelers? It is very ingrained in humans, from childhood onward, and a matter of ethics that is to be striven for and pursued. You love your mother so dearly that she cannot be erased without your notice; it is a fine gift she has in you, mademoiselle.”

Cosette considers that for a moment, her thoughts still caught up in Éponine and her sister, whose name Cosette no longer recalls. “What of those who have no one to remember them?”

Combeferre pauses and considers before he answers. “There are those unlucky folk, yes. It is our greatest honor to work so that no one may be so easily forgotten. In the light of dawn, all people’s names will be recalled, and suffering drawn out of the shadows until it is diminished. That is my hope, at least.”

“It is a good hope,” Cosette allows, her voice scarcely above a whisper. She can hardly imagine such a world, and yet she grasps his meaning implicitly. If Fantine had not fought so hard for Cosette, had not lived despite her pain and exhaustion, had not begged Cosette’s father for his aid, then would Cosette not have been diminished in those shadows? Died in those shadows? By what light and grace was she freed of them, and was that not why she tried for pity and charity, in the face of all of Paris’ poverty? She sighs. “Another question, if you will. If the person who… wished this world into being erased my mother for his own gain, how is it that his station is not elevated? Surely no one could wish such a thing for spite a decade old.”

“No,” Combeferre consents. He sighs, lets the ribbon pile in a graceful fall in the second circle, and goes to his desk once more, searching for something in a drawer. “That is true. Spells, no matter how powerful, cannot alter a man’s nature so fundamentally, especially when done of his own design. If he would squander what he owns, then the temporary gain afforded by such a change would likely be squandered as well.”

Cosette frowns, thoughtful. “I suppose that makes sense. Still, it is… a very sad thing.”

“It is.” Combeferre retrieves what he was looking for and turns back. It is, she sees, a thick, curved tile, a faintly reflective metallic blue-silver, edged with sharper streaks of colors, heavy enough that he supports it with both hands. He catches her looking and smiles confidentially.

A dragon scale. His _own_ scale, presumably. Dragon scales are a rare and priceless thing, Cosette is given to understand, magical conduits so unbelievably powerful that wars have been fought over their possession and provenance. Here is Combeferre, using one for her benefit, and even if it is old or shed, she is staggered by the generosity of it. No small spell, this! Not even all her work, nor Courfeyrac’s still unfathomed trust, can be measured against this.

But then, Combeferre seems very kind, in all his essence. She is blindingly grateful.

Combeferre’s face softens like her thoughts are written on her face. He kneels back down, flipping the scale to trace further marks still on its underside, odd and spiraling lines she cannot identify.

When he sets it down, he reaches back for a pitcher of plain white ceramic that sloshes faintly, as if half-full of water. Combeferre situates it in the center of the circle and places the two stalks of flowering heart’s-loss inside. He murmurs some incantation under his breath and curves his hands upward, coaxing, and the flowers seem to be invigorated. They perk and brighten, for all the world as fresh as when Cosette broke their stems this morning.

She cannot keep her gasp quiet this time.

“A small magic, but a favorite of mine,” Combeferre says, his fingertips stroking the petals. It looks, almost as though in double, as if there is a flicker of talons at the end, dark and sharp, but it may be as much her imagination as when he traced a line on her forehead. “You have a way with plants, do you not?”

“I like them,” Cosette replies, and rises when he waves her over. She is careful to step cleanly over the edge of the circle, lifting her skirts though she knows she is unlikely to trail them through the chalk with a clumsy movement. “They are good company, plants, and full of life. I have a garden, at home.”

“I thought you might. If you will move your sleeves, please, I will need to write on your arms.” Combeferre says it quite perfunctorily, and it is not any more improper than what she had done to mix her blood with the ink, so Cosette lowers herself to the ground, not disturbing the pitcher, and begins to roll up her sleeve.

“Why do you ask?” she asks him, looking at her buttons to avoid his gaze.

Combeferre hums, thoughtful, and accepts her arm when she’s secured her sleeve back. His hands are warm and steady, as he dips his brush in the ink and then touches the brush to her skin. It is cool, startling, but not icy, and stark against the paleness of her complexion. “I ask because I think you have a touch of magic of your own. With plants, I imagine. You might consider asking the plant sorcerer Courfeyrac directed you to for some training, when your venture is done. You are under no obligation to, but knowledge always serves in good stead, and you have a right to know your own powers if that is a path you might desire. There is nothing dishonorable in that sort of mage work.”

Magic, as Cosette has known it, is a fleeting thing glimpsed from a distance. She has never known practitioners of it, not until she met Musichetta and now Combeferre. Monsieur Mabeuf and Georges Pontmercy, perhaps, as well, but Cosette finds them more intimidating and more familiar all the same. Certainly she thought there none in herself – no magic manifested to protect in the distant dark of her childhood, nor even unexpected strangeness in her garden.

And yet… it sparks something in her, the same instinct that makes her memorize the location of Monsieur Mabeuf’s bookseller and the title of his tome. Cosette hungers for that knowledge, thirsts like wild mint and drinks like a mirror drinks in the world around it. Oh, the thought that _she_ , Cosette, might have some skill with magic!

It is not a usual girl’s dream, and yet it is, beyond simply the lure of the mystical: the practitioner of magic may rely on their skill and their learning, will always have a trade to ply. To have magic is to also be owed instruction, which itself guarantees a measure of self-sufficiency and therein a leverage for freedom.

“Do I truly?” Cosette asks, more overwhelmed by the thought than by the mix of blood and ink slowly drying on her arms while Combeferre continues his work.

“Yes,” Combeferre says simply, glancing up at her. A glance is enough: his eyes hold weight and conviction enough that she only nods.

At last, Combeferre picks up his brush and dish of ink and retreats from the circle. He rolls up his own sleeves and surveys the arrangement with keen scrutiny. Finally, he seems to determine all is in order and kneels down. “Please think on your mother and concentrate, if you would.”

“I shall.” Cosette breathes in deeply and tries to steady herself. She watches Combeferre focus, the sense of something _powerful_ beginning to build in the room. She closes her eyes.

Fantine, who stroked Cosette’s hair from her face with gentle hands, no concern for her own frailty in the face of Cosette’s. Fantine, who loves Cosette fearsomely and whole-heartedly, with a sweetness as delicate as lace. Fantine, with soft hands and softer eyes, who shies from conflict but has an endless well of willpower when it comes to Cosette.

She tries to think of waking up in the morning, going down to breakfast, of Fantine rising from her chair to embrace Cosette and cup her face in her hands, thumbs following the curves of Cosette’s cheeks as Fantine smiles and warmly bids her good morning, like Cosette is the dawn condensed into a woman and Fantine herself is not.

Cosette cannot bear to picture a lifetime of mornings where Fantine is absent.

The magic ebbs out of her like a candle flame suddenly blown out, and she sags, smoldering, back into herself. Her muscles ache with tension, pulled taut and relaxed again without warning or preparation.

Cosette blinks until the world clarifies. In front of her, the flowering-heart’s loss is smoking, flowers burned away to ashes and stems blackened. A heavy, thickly burning scent hangs in the air.

“Here you are.” Combeferre’s mellow voice breaks through her reverie, his boot scuffing a deliberate line in the chalk as he leans down to offer her a handkerchief dampened with water. Pale, faint intimations of scales glimmer like water droplets on his cheeks and forehead. “You ought to clean your arms of ink before getting up.”

There is a knock on the door and he goes to answer while Cosette dabs, discreetly as she can, at her face before wiping at her arms. The ink, at least, lifts away easily, a bloody-black mess on the white linen.

“I thought it best to wait until the working tied itself off,” she hears from the door, Musichetta’s voice floating through, followed by Musichetta herself. She tsks sympathetically and offers her hands to Cosette. “Cosette, good evening.”

“Good evening,” Cosette replies, surprised, and reaches for Éponine’s ribbon, slipping it into her pocket for the moment. “Is it evening already?”

“Barely so,” Musichetta assures her. “Courfeyrac relayed a message to me and I thought you might, perhaps, care for some company. Would you like to stay the night with me?”

Cosette considers that while she allows Musichetta to help her to her feet, and finds that she does. “That is very kind, thank you.”

Musichetta beams at her. “Kind is rewarded in kind, and as you and I are of the same kind, then it follows I must be so!”

Cosette laughs, unable to feel shabby in the light of Musichetta’s warm greeting. “Then I shall thank you twice over, to continue such a cycle.”

She turns to Combeferre.

“Thank you as well,” Cosette says. “I am greatly in your debt. How can I repay you, monsieur?”

“Kindness shall do very well.” Combeferre nods his head. “It is too early to say, besides – you will find out on the morrow how successful our efforts were, so no need to thank me yet. It was only right that I help, if I could.”

“All the same, I thank you.” Cosette dips her skirts as gracefully as she can, but Combeferre demurs again and shows them to the door.

Musichetta is quiet on the walk back, tucking her arm into Cosette’s companionably but not demanding the details of Cosette’s efforts. Cosette could weep for the respite, for the solidity of another beside her as she walks the streets.

The rain has come back in with the evening clouds, wrung from the sky like exhausted tears, a slow and steady drizzle with fiercer bursts of firmer showers. It paints the sky indigo and grey where the sun does not hold its own, and colors in the shadows that will give over to the night in time.

Cosette tilts her face into it on a wild whim, joy as fleeting as the drops that scatter on her cheeks and weariness as steady as the water collecting in the gutter.

When they reach Musichetta’s lodgings, Musichetta is kind enough to share her supper as well, regaling Cosette with tales of her own explorations of Paris and some of the amusing situations that have cropped up during her fortunetelling. She’s clever and sly without crossing the line of good taste, perhaps sensitive to Cosette’s sensibilities, and Cosette finds herself muffling her laughter in her hands. It is a welcome reprieve from the tense drive of the last two days. She does, eventually, relay the tale to Musichetta, as much as she dares while protecting the privacy of those involved.

At length, the candles burn low, and they retreat to Musichetta’s bedroom. Musichetta offers to brush Cosette’s hair and does so patiently, and Cosette does her best to return the favor.

“I hope I do not go too far,” Cosette says, winding Musichetta’s hair into a tight braid for the night, “but I hope I can say we are friends. I admire you very much.”

“Of course we are friends!” Musichetta cries, but her delight is genuine when she turns to smile at Cosette, which she returns without thought.

It has been a long night and a longer day, and Cosette half expects to drop into sleep the moment she crawls beneath the covers, but her thoughts whisper and tug at her, and her fingers run anxiously over the tattered ribbon restored to its place about her wrist.

“I do not know what I will do, if I remember none of this in the morning,” Cosette confides in the dark. Her voice sounds faltering even to her.

Musichetta fumbles for her hand and squeezes. “I am sure you will, but will send you a note tomorrow, if I do, and you will know for sure.”

Cosette, speechless, squeezes Musichetta’s hand back. She hopes very much that will be so, hopes that none of the good she has tried for will be undone, and that the day will come bright and sure, and that hope struggles with the fear of loss and loneliness until at last Cosette’s dizzy head quiets and she falls, endless and weightless, into sleep.

Her dreams are nothing, muddled impressions that swirl together like raindrops running down windows and swirls of thinly woven pale fabrics.

When Cosette stirs to consciousness, the world is warm. Her covers are heavy as her eyes and she sighs into the familiar softness of her pillow. Awareness follows on consciousness’ heels, and Cosette bolts aright, eyes flying across the room.

She is alone and her room is her own: her curtains the shade she recalls, cracked just enough to flood the room with weak grey-blue light. Cosette sighs and falls back into her mattress, pressing her smile into the covers, like she can hold her hope to her chest.

Her wrist is bare, but yes, she recalls Éponine’s terribly cracked pride, Musichetta’s warm openness, Combeferre’s calm wisdom. Monsieur Mabeuf and his shaking hands, the Pontmercys and their curse broken open. The feel of magic fluttering under her skin.

Cosette pries herself from bed, unable to wait in such tense uncertainty, and dresses just enough to hurry down the stairs, unable to quite believe until –

Until she sees Fantine looking out over the back garden, and cannot keep a wounded noise from her throat.

Fantine turns, golden hair loosely spilling down her back and features creased with years of hard worry soothed with time, and frowns. “Cosette, my dear, whatever has upset you?”

“Nothing, Maman,” Cosette tells her, raw with emotion, and wipes at her eyes before rushing over to wrap her arms around her mother. “Nothing at all. I am just happy to see you, that is all.”

“Well!” Fantine sounds taken aback and slightly concerned, but is all full of fondness, and she curls her arms around Cosette in return, one hand resting on her curls. “I am very glad to see you as well, darling.”

Cosette holds her another moment longer, then pushes herself up on her toes to kiss her mother’s forehead, as Fantine has done for her many times before. “I do love you.”

“I love you too,” Fantine says with a laugh, and catches Cosette’s face in her hands. “A sweeter daughter I could never hope for.”

“Only for the help of you and Papa,” Cosette demurs, leaning into Fantine’s gentle touch. Her heart feels overfull, joyful to the point of near sorrow, for the fact that not everyone can feel so wholly, utterly loved. “Will you sit in the garden with me later?”

Fantine smiles. “I shall, but I cannot imagine you will want to be working out there today! Did you not hear the storm last night? It was a mighty one.”

Cosette shakes her head, all at once wanting to laugh. A thunderstorm, a whirl of change indeed!

“Ah, good morning, Ultime,” Fantine says, and Cosette turns to see her father entering the room.

“Good morning, Fantine,” he replies, still aged and weathered, but eased from the father Cosette had seen two mornings earlier. His eyes, though melancholy, do not hold the same profound sorrow. His smile, as always, creases his kindly face with lines. “Cosette.”

“Good morning, Papa!” she greets, and seizes his hands with a surge of affection. She suspects her parents trade a bemused and indulgent look over her head, but Ultime simply bends and kisses the top of her head, his large hands enfolding hers for a moment.

In burst of sentiment, despite her attempts at restraint, she throws her arms around him and smiles against his shoulder when he returns her embrace.

“What is all this?” he asks, laughter threatening, but earnest affection too.

“I am only happy to see you,” Cosette says, attempting to regain her composure, however impossible it may be when the effervescent joy of waking from a dark terror overwhelms her. She wonders what changes they see or may see reflected in her, if she still appears to be the same as ever, or if she is as altered in behavior as she feels in spirit. “I am full of sentiment this morning, Maman can attest.”

She chivvies them in for breakfast, wanting to bask in the warm familiarity of her family whole again. It is as if something fundamental has been relocated in the world, all sounds sweeter and all sights brighter, and Cosette as firmly fixed in her rotation as the sun, sure of herself for all the change and possibility recent events have laid upon her.

“Pardon me,” Toussaint says partway through breakfast, looking faintly bewildered as she enters with an envelope in hand. “Cosette, this note was sent to you.”

Fantine startles slightly while Ultime frowns, and Cosette tries to contain the burst of hope and worry that rises in her as she reaches for the note, opens it with the calmest hands she can attempt.

The note, in a fine hand, if quickly penned, reads: ‘ _By my hand, the proof I hope you seek! Eagerly awaiting your reply. B. and J. recall themselves to you as well. – M’_

Cosette hides a smile behind her hand, could laugh for joy. Combeferre she had no doubt of, cannot imagine a dragon would be fooled by a spell powered at his own hand, but here is hope. She does not know yet what help she can offer the Pontmercy family as they engage their tender and aching negotiations of reunion, nor to Mabeuf in his lonely apartment and dwindling collection of books, nor yet to Éponine and her sister, whose lots cannot have improved with Cosette’s reversal of things should their parents remember. She does not yet know, either, how to repay the kindness and generosity of her acquaintances, who may yet be friends – Musichetta, who _is_ a friend. She does not yet know what she may do with Combeferre’s evening words on magic and greenery.

The world, though, at least the parts she had touched, recall her, and she has only gained through what was freely given and hard sought. Cosette’s joy feels a fire to burn hope through all the city.

“Whatever can your letter say?” Fantine asks, half teasing and faintly edged with apprehension. “I feel I have missed half a conversation, with the look upon your face.”

She thinks her parents both inclined to sympathy to the Thénardier sisters’ plight, Fantine who lost her teeth once to poverty and Ultime who shows generosity to those hardest on their luck most of all, if they will be upset to know of the threat the girls’ father may pose. She hopes very much, too, that Fantine might get on well with Marie Pontmercy, who surely will want for a friend, and one who will understand the hardships of being separated from a child.

“Oh, Maman, it has been a very strange few days,” Cosette says, clasping Musichetta’s note briefly to her chest for gladness. “I shall tell you after breakfast, but I am very glad for the both of you.”

Yes, Cosette thinks she will have their help as she attempts to make good on her promises and hopes; she will not have to do it all alone.

Outside, the grass is high and wet with rain, and Cosette can hear the linnets trilling in the branches, and feels that the future will come to pass simply, of itself, as the night goes when the day comes.


End file.
